Warning: There are spoilers ahead if you're not caught up with "The Walking Dead."
The season six finale of "The Walking Dead" airs Sunday, April 3.
The 90-minute episode is going to be a big one. AMC has teased the entry of the show's next big villain, Negan, in promo photos and a finale teaser.
Fans have been waiting to see the iconic character from the comics since the series first began on AMC back in 2010. So far, the character has been teased all season. When we do see Negan on screen, fans are expecting his entry to be a television event. The character's introduction in the comic series of the same name is heartbreakingly dramatic. (You can read more on that here if you're into spoilers.)
Tech Insider recently caught up with Austin Amelio, who plays Dwight, one of Negan's right-hand men. Amelio said Jeffrey Dean Morgan will not disappoint in the season six finale.
"He’s awesome. He fully embodies Negan," Amelio tells Tech Insider.
For those who aren't familiar with Negan, he's a former car salesman who loves to drop the f-bomb and has a twisted sense of humor. In many ways, he appears to be the antithesis of the show's protagonist, Rick Grimes. Negan (no last name) is the leader of his own group, the Saviors. They're a little more foul-mouthed and quick to take anything they believe belongs to them by force.
In other ways, he's nearly a mirror image of Rick, just with a different set of guidelines and beliefs to surviving the zombie apocalypse.
The character wields a barbed-wired bat named Lucille which he uses to carry out his own brand of justice. He's a character fans love to hate before discovering that they actually kind of love him. Negan's hilarious, though incredibly terrifying.
"People are going to hate him, but he’s an incredible actor and he … I’ll just say he does Negan more than justice. That’s for sure," he says. "I was just sitting there when they were filming, watching him. I mean, I was in the scene as well, but there were some times where I would have a break and he would have to do his stuff. He’s so on point with Negan, it’s scary. It’s like haunting."
"It’s going to be quite the episode. He’s incredible," Amelio says. "It’s scary."
Amelio revealed he’ll be in a scene with Negan as well. It's not clear whether he was referencing a potential flashback scene with Negan, but the last time we saw Dwight, he was with Daryl (Norman Reedus), Michonne (Danai Gurira), Glenn (Steven Yeun), and Rosita (Christian Serratos), holding them captive.
Dwight also shot Daryl, but Amelio told us the fan favorite is fine. He shot him in the shoulder.
Will he and his Savior crew bring their hostages to Negan? That would make sense considering they’ve killed an awfully large number of Negan’s men this season.
For fans of the comic, that’s probably exciting to hear. It sounds like they’re setting up a huge scene from issue #100 of the comics.
Only continue reading if you want to read comic spoilers!
It also sounds like most of the show's core characters — Daryl, Glenn, Michonne, Rosita, the group's fearless leader, Rick, and his son Carl — will end up meeting with Negan at some point in the finale.
We could see even more of them meet Negan.
If you watched the episode's teaser trailer, you can spot a few faces kneeled around Negan.
This is a scene straight out of the comics.
Negan's entry is a bloody memorable one, literally. He lines up members of Rick's crew, and, as punishment for killing so many of his men, he decides to kill one of them in front of Rick. The way he chooses is through a grisly rhyme of "Eeny , meeny, miney, mo." Really.
"The Walking Dead" creator Robert Kirkman has hinted to EW that we'll see some version of this iconic scene play out in the finale. Fans just shouldn't expect it to be a straight-forward adaptation.
"All I want to say is, read the comic, but you’re not going to know what to expect," Kirkman told Entertainment Weekly. "Part of the reason that that moment was such a big deal in the comic is the fact that you did not expect that it was going to happen, and so we’re very confident that we found a way to keep it as unexpected in the show as it was in the comic. So it should be just as intense, just as heartbreaking, and just as shocking."
The one problem with this theory is that Amelio told us he hasn’t yet filmed a scene with Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick. If we expect Rick to be part of a lineup alongside Daryl, Glenn, Rosita, and Michonne, it seems a bit weird that Dwight's not there, too.
That doesn't mean we still won't see all of them together. Maybe Dwight does bring his captives to Negan and then heads off to lead a group of Saviors to take Rick's home of Alexandria by storm. From the teaser trailer, and an image released by AMC, we know that Rick goes back to Alexandria before deciding to head back on the road with Carl and numerous others.
The trailer makes it appear as if Rick then comes into contact with Negan. From there, things are certain to get crazy.
We'll have to wait until Sunday's season six finale to find out for sure. "The Walking Dead" airs April 3 at 9 p.m.
Until then, check out the promo for Sunday's episode below.
